Well, I dunno how well forgotten QMS. or BB are... to me, all these folks were playing some version of the blues but ran through the filter of young folks on acid. And they are all about obscure with folks these days.
My understanding is that Tommy Hall claims to have invented the term "psych rock", but as the wiki points out, folks like the Holy Modal Rounders might have already been using it.
According to my buddy from the elevators (who was, like, 72 when I started playing with him), the Dead an JA really (really) sucked and mostly got traction because they could make drugs show up.
He was saying they were literally doing free shows and handing out pot. As for JA, my buddy was claiming that they were pretty bad, to the point of not understanding how to tune their instruments.
I personally really like the dead, though I never saw them in person, and I am pretty sure there is some amount of sour grapes. But still, they were out there in SF off and on during that time, so I'm just reporting what he said.
Given the nature of this music, I feel that the innovation is what drugs folks were taking at the show... so it doesn't seem odd to me that there are strange mixes of pop, blues, country, bluegrass, etc.
I will say that the elevators might also reasonably be termed Texas Garage rock, which some folks consider a specific genera, and which has a lot pop-ier connotations to me. Those same kids were really into the blues. Moving Sidewalks, for instance, was influenced by the elevators but became ZZ Top rather than something more psychedelic, and there were a whole scene of kids a few years younger in Ft. Worth who skipped the psych and played the blues (Bug Henderson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Marc Benno, another weirdo in Kerrville I was playing with for a bit).
Joplin also came out of Texas at that time (she came out of Port A), and as far as I could tell a lot of these folks knew each other and had been playing shows with similar groups in the 65 and early 66.
To your question, I think that the dead really took the psych banner and ran with it. Surely someone would if not them, cause it's fun to drop acid and listen to music. They seemed to have a much, much better head for business than any of these other groups, and so they built a much more recognizable and main stream enterprise out of touring and lighting folks up.
That's a lot of really interesting stuff, thank you for the long reply.
I did see the Dead, a lot, although I only saw JA once and it was after Starship and it wasn't great. Just a cheesy reunion at some protest in DC IIRC.
Now when I started seeing the Dead and following them around it was the 80's so maybe they learned to play by then? But seriously, I don't know how anyone can say with a straight face that the Dead "sucked". They played a LOT of shows over the years, sometimes over 175 in a year. There were bound to be good and bad days. But even going back to 1965 I can find examples of their music that sounds quite polished, rehearsed and professional to me.
With regards to JA again, as far as I'm concerned Jorma Kaukonen is one of the most talented guitar players I've ever had the pleasure to see. I once watched him play by himself in front of small crowd. I was like five feet from him on a street in Baltimore City and he played a 12 song set on a 12 string... It was great and just watching his hands let you know how intricate what he was doing was. Then the rest of his band at the time, Hot Tuna, came out and jammed for another couple hours.
I admit, there were drugs involved back then but I gave all that up over 30 years ago and I still listen to the Dead, Jorma, Tuna, those "obscure" bands we mentioned and, yes even JA. Maybe it's a niche taste these days but I feel their music stands up to the test of time. At least a lot of the music by the Dead especially.
But as Jack Black likes to say, it's all very subjective and my opinions are pretty meaningless in the whole scheme of things; but still fun to talk about and take a trip down memory lane (no pun intended). So thanks again.
Well, keep in mind that Jerry Garcia was, what, 24 in 1965? And I've heard some pretty iffy tapes of what they were doing at that time, but I've also heard quite polished things, too. 20 years of 150-shows-a-year might have improved them.
And as I said, there might be a fair amount of sour grapes going on there, too. A lot of folks have really funky egos. One of the other old dudes I used to play with in Kerrville, TX was Marc Benno... I read a rolling stone interview with him where he claims not to have known who the Doors were when he got hired to play on the LA Woman sessions... I dunno if I believe that, but either way it seems like an easy way to characterize a lot of the almost-famous folks I've played with.
I perform dead tunes pretty routinely (I've been working up Dire Wolf on pedal steel and ac. guit lately)... I feel pretty strongly about the music. You don't have to sell me on the goodness of it.
My understanding is that Tommy Hall claims to have invented the term "psych rock", but as the wiki points out, folks like the Holy Modal Rounders might have already been using it.
According to my buddy from the elevators (who was, like, 72 when I started playing with him), the Dead an JA really (really) sucked and mostly got traction because they could make drugs show up.
He was saying they were literally doing free shows and handing out pot. As for JA, my buddy was claiming that they were pretty bad, to the point of not understanding how to tune their instruments.
I personally really like the dead, though I never saw them in person, and I am pretty sure there is some amount of sour grapes. But still, they were out there in SF off and on during that time, so I'm just reporting what he said.
Given the nature of this music, I feel that the innovation is what drugs folks were taking at the show... so it doesn't seem odd to me that there are strange mixes of pop, blues, country, bluegrass, etc.
I will say that the elevators might also reasonably be termed Texas Garage rock, which some folks consider a specific genera, and which has a lot pop-ier connotations to me. Those same kids were really into the blues. Moving Sidewalks, for instance, was influenced by the elevators but became ZZ Top rather than something more psychedelic, and there were a whole scene of kids a few years younger in Ft. Worth who skipped the psych and played the blues (Bug Henderson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Marc Benno, another weirdo in Kerrville I was playing with for a bit).
Joplin also came out of Texas at that time (she came out of Port A), and as far as I could tell a lot of these folks knew each other and had been playing shows with similar groups in the 65 and early 66.
To your question, I think that the dead really took the psych banner and ran with it. Surely someone would if not them, cause it's fun to drop acid and listen to music. They seemed to have a much, much better head for business than any of these other groups, and so they built a much more recognizable and main stream enterprise out of touring and lighting folks up.